Saving the Day

DEEP WOODS—DAYTIMEA LOVELY YOUNG WOMAN lies on the ground, a snakebite on her thigh. A DOCTOR cradles her head, as she bravely fights for life.

DOCTORShe only has two hours to live, and the only antidote is five miles away! We have no transportation and no way to communicate! She's doomed unless...someone here can run 10 miles in 90 minutes or less!

THE FOOTBALL STAR, THE CLASS PRESIDENT, and THE HANDSOME MUSICIAN look down helplessly.

PETER steps forward. He peels off his jacket, revealing a running singlet.

PETERI'll be right back.

That scenario, despite its brevity, was the result of much creative thinking, usually while running endless six-mile loops around my hometown in high school. Each element was carefully shaped to create a scene in which the difference between life and death, between tragedy and the gratitude of an attractive woman, was my ability to run longish distances at a moderate pace. Because as I did those loops down to the drugstore and then the middle school and then back home, as I spent an hour and 600 calories to end up exactly where I began, I kept asking myself, What's the point?

Oh, we runners talk of the cardiovascular and psychological benefits of running, we brag of the weight loss, but deep down we know that running is essentially useless. In the modern world, it gives us no competitive advantage, no marketable skill, no way of earning our keep, and hasn't since we invented agriculture and no longer needed to run down our prey. My hobby involves getting up early to run five miles around my neighborhood, and it creates nothing except an unpleasant aroma around the breakfast table once I return home. In contrast, my wife's hobbies include knitting, sewing, cooking, and playing music, so that if our family were stranded on a desert island, she'd be able to handle the necessities and entertainment, and I would be reduced to occasionally running around the island to make sure it hadn't somehow reattached itself to land.

All my life I've looked for ways that my running could actually be useful. In our world of automobiles, planes, and moving sidewalks, running is like a silly superpower: most people can't do it, but most people don't need to. It's a shame you can't train yourself up from running to flying. Now, that would be impressive.

This fact hasn't halted my attempts to make running pay off in other ways. Some years ago, while hiking in Hawaii, my kids got tired two miles down the trail, so I suggested they take a spur trail down to a nearby road, while I ran back to get the car. I was halfway back, when I realized that my droopy hiking shorts were hurting my cause more than they were helping it, so I took them off, and continued down the deserted trail in my underwear. Which, of course, is just when I ran into the four high-school girls and their dates. That's when I realized one of running's few true uses: very quick exits.

It's good for fast entrances, too. Just recently, after I had reconciled myself to running being a quirky throwback hobby, like Civil War re-enactment, I was walking my kids to school, per usual, and we were late, per usual. The other kids were already inside, and in the distance we could see the teacher's aide getting ready to close the door and lock us out.

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